Deirdre Hussey, spokeswoman for Mayor Ed Lee, called it a “job-killing measure.” She added that the measure “upends the grand bargain” made between business and labor that ultimately led voters to eliminate the payroll tax in 2012.

All right, all I’ve done so far is simply read the news to you. But now let’s travel back to a time when former Mayor Gavin Newsom, another Right-Of-Center Willie Brown Appointee Who Somehow Ended Up Mayor, signed into law the very same 1.5% stock options tax. So put on your white shoes and dance the blues – it’s Pillsbury, bitches:

On February 19, 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom approved recent changes to San Francisco’s Business Tax ordinance adopted by the Board of Supervisors on February 19, 2004. These changes become effective March 20, 2004, 30 days after signing by the Mayor.

…the amendments also contain significant changes such as … including stock options in the definition of payroll expense.“

So, was Gavin Newsom’s stock options tax a “job-killing measure” back in 2004 the way the same tax is being portrayed here in 2016?

That’s my question – I don’t know how ppl would answer.

But I’m thinking that if this 2016 proposal gets enacted and you’re a “tech* company,” whatever that is, going IPO in Frisco will cost you millions, just as Gavin Newsom wanted back in aught-four.

Let’s see if I can pay off on that headline here. So yeah, Ed Lee’s not popular these days, for a host of reasons. Look it up. And I believe this person could be described as an owner, of Cassava, which certainly is popular

And Twitter Tax Break, well that’s a term people use. Here’s how things* got started, but we’re not only subsidizing Twitter in the Twitterloin area – there are other outfits too. It’s complicated.

*Part of the problem the tech bros had was a law signed into law in 2004 by Gavin Newsom, which was designed to close a “loophole” in the payroll tax having to do with IPOs. Anyway, the loophole’s back.

That kicked off the whole tax boondoggle that Microsoft Yammer is taking advantage of now.

Oh, here it is:

“THIS COMMUNITY BENEFIT AGREEMENT 2013 MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING is made as of January 1, 2013 in the City and County of San Francisco, State of California, by and between YAMMER, A SUBSIDIARY OF MICROSOFT(“Microsoft”) and the CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, a municipal corporation (“City”) acting by and through the City Administrator”

And it goes on and on talking about all the things that Microsoft is obligated to do for non-profit organizations that just happened to have endorsed Appointed Mayor Ed Lee.

So, well meaning white people who appear to be so, so, soooooo very proud of giving monitors worth (let’s hope) at least the contractually obligated $10,000 agreed to by MS….

I’ll do all the legwork if you’ll give me some basic tax and income information. So maybe some years that could end up being a lot of money. I’d say, ooh, IPO! That’s going to cost Microsoft SF a few million bucks. And then you’d cut a check for the general fund.

There’d be no Ron Conway-type exception for you.

What’s that? You can’t afford to pay the oppressive taxes and loophole closures signed into law by the San Francisco Mayors of Yesteryear?

You know, I don’t believe that, Yammer Micro$oft.

What’s that, you’d rather move to Brisbane or someplace in San Mateo County?

Well, then be my guest. (You know, most people pricing apartment rentals in town lately would welcome your departure. You think I’m joking? No, I’m srlsy.)

What’s that, you like “giving back” to the corrupt Twitterloin, ’cause you think it’s a kewl thing to do and whatnot?

Fine, do that AND pay your fair share of taxes to the General Fund, why not?

That would be groovy.

But what you’re doing now is getting involved with SFGov corruption in the most corrupt big American city west of Chicago.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 17, 2011– Yelp Inc. announced today that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to a proposed initial public offering of its Class A common stock. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. A portion of the shares will be issued and sold by Yelp, and a portion will be sold by certain stockholders of Yelp.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. will be the lead bookrunning manager and representative of the underwriters for the offering. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Jefferies & Company, Inc. will be joint bookrunning managers, and Allen & Company LLC and Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. will be co-managers for the offering. This offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. A copy of the preliminary prospectus, when available, may be obtained from Goldman, Sachs & Co. at 200 West Street, New York, New York 10282, Attention: Prospectus Department, by calling (866) 471-2526 or by e-mailing prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com; Citigroup Global Markets Inc. at Brooklyn Army Terminal, 140 58th Street, 8th floor, Brooklyn, NY 11220, by calling (800) 831-9146 or by emailing batprospectusdept@citi.com; or Jefferies & Company, Inc. at 520 Madison Avenue, 12th Floor, New York, NY, 10022, Attention: Equity Syndicate Prospectus Department, by calling (877) 547-6340 or by emailing Prospectus_Department@Jefferies.com.

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the SEC but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.”

“Central Market Street and Tenderloin Area Payroll Expense Tax Exclusion is now publicly available and can be found on the Office of Economic and Workforce Development website, www.oewd.org, as well as on the new Central Market Partnership website, www.centralmarketpartnership.org. Applications are being accepted now, and the deadline to apply for the 2011 tax year is November 1, 2011. Please contact the Office of Economic and Workforce Development at 415-554-6969 with any questions regarding the application for the Payroll Expense Tax Exclusion.”]

I don’t really get this one here. Zendesk needed corporate welfare to move into the Mid-Market and it wasn’t going to do so anyway, do I have that right?

Now, is it possible that ZenDesk didn’t need that subsidy to move into the Twitterloin? Sure seems that way. Mmmm…

And let me assure you that nothing has substantively changed betwixt Dot Com Era I of the late 90’s and our current Dot Com Era II as far as stock options are concerned. Obviously, a San Francisco company going public might not want to deal with the 2004 tax signed into law by Gavin Newsom. Obviously. So what’s changed the past seven years?

So why did Gavin Newsom sign his tax into law back in aught-four? Did he do it to “punish companies?” Did he do it to “kill jobs?” Was Gavin Newsom a “job killer?”

Apparently.

Hey, how about this? Why not treat all companies the same? Why not get rid subsidies for biotech? Why not address concerns about Mid Market without corporate welfare?

“SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 31, 2011 — Zendesk, the leading provider of proven, cloud-based help desk software, today announced a $1 million pledge to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

“Zendesk was founded in Denmark and moved to San Francisco in 2009,” said Mikkel Svane, Zendesk’s CEO. “We have been humbled by the wonderful way we have been welcomed to this city and its vital high-tech community. As Zendesk continues its rapid growth, we want to share our good fortune with the city and people that helped make it possible. As a father and client of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, this charity is especially meaningful to me.”

Zendesk is kicking off this year-long effort with a sponsorship of the Salesforce Foundation’s Concert to Benefit the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital to be held on Thursday, September 1, 2011. Zendesk will host its customers, partners and employees to attend this charity event. Throughout the next year, Zendesk will donate a portion of its sales, as well as hold other fund-raising events, to deliver on its $1 million pledge. In addition, its employees will participate in volunteer programs for the hospital.

“The Salesforce Foundation has been an inspiration to us on how to integrate philanthropy into a company’s culture,” Svane added. “Today’s announcement is just the first of many demonstrating Zendesk’s gratitude to the city of San Francisco. Having just moved into new headquarters in the Central Market, we also look forward to making our new neighborhood a better place to work.”

“It’s great to see Zendesk, one of San Francisco’s rapidly growing tech companies, already giving back to the citizens of San Francisco,” said Mayor Edwin M. Lee. “We are grateful to them for their generous pledge to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.”

About Zendesk

Zendesk is the leading provider of proven, cloud-based help desk software. For growing organizations, Zendesk is the fastest way to enable great customer service. More than 10,000 Zendesk customers, including Adobe, MSNBC, Sony, OpenTable and Groupon, trust Zendesk with their most valuable assets, their customers, partners, and employees. Founded in 2007, Zendesk is funded by Charles River Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Matrix Partners. Learn more at www.zendesk.com.”

“We have kind of a unique taxing system here in San Francisco where historically we’ve actually taxed employees’ growth, and that’s kind of a business punisher, if you will. If you’re going to grow the employees, why would we punish that?”

So, how can we reconcile this? Here’s a stab at it, again from Mayor Lee:

“Now, we’ve never really distinguished stock options; we’ve always taxed compensation just like any payroll tax would. But we didn’t realize that stock options was something very special to the tech companies. And as they’ve grown, they’ve educated us about how valuable those stock options are.”

But didn’t we have stock options and tech companies about back in the dotcom era? Yes we did. Has anything changed since then, are stock options new? No, not at all.

I cry foul.

And I’ll tell you, I don’t see a way out of this one. Tell me, Gentle Reader, how can we reconcile dese tings?

(Also, note how the Supervisors voted back int the day. Do you think Sean Elsbernd, if he had gotten his current gig just a little earlier, would have voted against this “job punishing” biz tax back in the day? Don’t know. It’s hard to imagine him defying Gavin Newsom, but anything’s possible, I suppose.)

When I heard, years ago now, about Jane Kim moving to District 6 to run for Supervisor, I thought, well, there’s some moxie, huh? But I wouldn’t have dreamed that the upshot would be a sitch where Randy Shaw has a say, a pretty strong one, apparently, about who pays how much in tax. It’s amazing.

O.K., back in the day, the 2004 effort to tax stock options was seen as goo-goo loophole closing, because companies could avoid the payroll tax through the use of stock options. The vote was unanimous, was it not?

Flash forward a half-decade and the tax on stock options is seen as some big bad thing. All right, but you got to tax something, right? You just can’t exempt certain industries, like biotech, or certain companies, like Twitter, without the appearance of government corruption. You just can’t do it.

Now, you want to get rid of the payroll tax as it now exists? Fine, how will you replace it, Mark Farrell? With nothing? O.K fine…

All right, let me tell you about the Biggest Stop Sign in the World – it used to be on Geary at 4th Avenue. Some people in the inner Richmond adult beverage industry wanted a traffic light put up at that intersection, so you know, their drunk customers wouldn’t get run over anymore, instead of what we had before, which was just crosswalks with no traffic light, no nothing.

But they couldn’t get it done. Year after year. But then, the genius idea: a stop sign. Getting a stop sign put in is easy-peasy. Of course, the business owners in the area didn’t actually want a stop sign, but that’s what they went for.

It was huge, let me tell you, like six feet in diameter. And it messed up traffic in the Inner Richmond like you wouldn’t believe, by design.

So, suddenly, the people who said no no no to a traffic signal before changed their minds and said yes yes yes we want a signal now now now.

And that’s why Fourth Ave. has a traffic signal today.

The Twitter exemption is the stop sign and the recent payroll tax stock option push for all companies in the 415 is the traffic signal.

Now you kids are too young to remember, but back in the day Furniture Mart was the thang, full of visiting Midwestern honeys ready to par-tay in the 415. Good times.

But really, the reason why all those Midwest farmers daughters came back to San Francisco all those years, well it had to do with history, the history of when the 415 was the Capital of the West as opposed to Just Another Ci-tay Near the West Coast, you know, beneath L.A., Fun Diego, San Hoser, Seattle and Portland (yes, sometimes even Portland).